Clutch Pro Tour - Event 2 Brocket Hall

Sunday 5th of May - Practice Day

My first time at Brocket Hall and wow, what a stunning place! The hall and the course setting around the river is very cool!

Practice facilities here are very good - amazing short game area with 3 chipping greens, a good size range and putting green... You don't always think about this but playing at a venue with good practice facilities makes such a difference in preparation before each round or post round practice.

I warmed up and got on the golf course, we

are playing the Palmerston course this week. It's a mixture of some tighter holes with trees and a couple more open holes. The tighter holes you have to be accurate off the tee and shape your ball around the dogleg correctly in order to set up a good approach to the greens. The greens this week are not super quick due the softness from the rain we've had but that actually is a good thing because some of the slopes on them are severe. A big emphasis this week is approach play distance control and accuracy. Hitting the ball in the right sections of the greens to navigate the undulations will be very important which I feel is my strong point.

I had a very productive practice round, going through my process on all my shots and getting a good feel on the greens.

There are some holes where a par is a good score and some holes where the is an opportunity to be slightly more aggressive.

I'm excited to build on last week and see what we can do here.

Monday 6th of May - Day 1

A 13:30 tee time was ideal as the practice round finished a little late so I had time to refresh before the round. At 11am I booked a session with Ellis who is golf fitness coach and he has some equipment called force plates that I was interested in using. We did a standing jump test so the plates measure the force you create in the jump which is linked to clubhead speed, a lot of DP tour guys use this. It was interesting to see the numbers and I came out just above average in the chart so some improvement to be made. Thanks to Ellis for the time and looking over my movements which was all in a good place.

In my mind I thought this would be a perfect way to warm up before the round but I quickly realised this wouldn't be the case. The morning players were coming in off the golf course due to the greens flooding and this would set the tone for the day. After waiting around for nearly 3 hours and attempting to resume play, the relentless rain left no other option but to suspend play for the remainder of the day. The course was soaking wet. Once we got the message that play wouldn't continue for the day, I quickly got myself down to the undercover practice range to at least hit a few balls to keep the feels going.

The revised tee times meant that tomorrow I would start at 10:10am with the high possibility of playing 36 holes in the day so I was conscious of saving my energy for what would turn out to be a very long day.

Tuesday 7th of May - Day 2

It was a glorious morning to wake up to, the players that were on the golf course from yesterday, finished off their round at 7am which left our side of the draw to follow. We would play our 1st round then almost straight away go back out for round 2. The other half would play their 2nd round on Wednesday morning then the final round being played on Wednesday afternoon. That was the plan anyway...

So round 1 for me was very good. I continued how I finished at Heythrop, playing some very good golf, under complete control and every area of my game in a good spot. Starting on the 10th, I found myself -4 through 9 which felt very comfortable. I played solid on my back 9 (course front 9) making a couple of good par saves when needed but missing a couple of good opportunities. I finished -4 for the round which was very pleasing and I had my best putting round statistically of the season so far.

After a 5 hour and 10 minute round, we had around 30 mins to quickly eat, get some drink and go again for round 2 which we teed of at 16:10. Play would stop at 20:30 so whatever hole you were on at that time, you could finish but not play any further.

Everyone was conscious of this because we would have to return the following morning at 7am to finish off the round. That quick turn around after playing 2 rounds in one day would not be ideal.

It took us 2 hours to play the front 9... a new record I think in a tournament!

We wasn't necessarily rushing, we were just walking fast between shots and playing ready golf. I was still playing solid all be it a couple of silly mistakes including a three putt from 25ft on hole 4 which was a lapse in concentration. I knew that I just had to keep focused as the long day in the warm weather was kicking in.

I birdied the par 5s 9th & 10th to get back to level for my round. But after a short par puttmissed on 11th and 14th, it was getting a little unsteady. We got the 15th tee at 19:45 so we had 45 minutes to get to the 18th tee and by this point we were starting to rush a bit. I hit a great drive on 15, and hit my approach shot to 4ft but I lipped out for birdie. On the 16th, I pushed my drive into the right trees which would result in a lost ball and a double bogey! I was now +4 for the round and level for the tournament, I knew this would be right on the cut mark. We got to the 17th tee at 20:15 after looking for my ball on the 16th so we had time to get the 18th.

The 17th is a par 3 playing 154 yards, I composed myself to hit a good 8 iron to 15ft. I knew I had to finish well to somewhat recover the round. I managed to hole this downhill left to right putt on 17 for a birdie and we got to the 18th tee at 20:23. Phew... we could relax as we knew that we finish the round. The 18th is a par 5 down the hill towards the clubhouse. It was was beautiful setting with the sunset. I hit a solid drive and 2nd shot about 40 yards short of the green but I had to hit a nippy pitch shot over the pot bunker to a front pin cut on the downslope. Not the most comfortable shot to have at the best of times, let alone in the dusk after playing 36 holes! In my mind, I knew I had to make birdie. I hit a decent pitch but it rolled away about 18ft from the hole. It was uphill slightly left to right and I made it! A great feeling to finish the day and a sense of relief. I was +2 for the round and -2 for the event sitting at T28.

The adrenaline of the day dropped down once I got back to the Airbnb and my whole body was sore from the day! But we were the last group to finish on the 18th which was massive. It took us 4 hours and 25 mins to play that 2nd round, almost an hour quicker than round 1!

The following morning, play was due to resume at 7am but after a 3 hour fog delay the tournament had to be reduced to 36 holes as there was not enough time to play the final round.

I finished T38 in the end which considering the circumstances, I managed to hold it together. My game is feeling very solid and showing some very positive signs.

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Next week is Frilford Heath.

Scorecard Summary

Thank you for following my journey.

Ryan